Facebook is about to initialize their $5 billion IPO as soon as perhaps today, CNBC reports. The business channel said they expect the site to "monetize", or find a way to make money like selling advertising or "getting a credit card number from their members". They wondered even though he is a genius, if Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of facebook can start making serious money with the site without driving us away?

Facebook is expected to file a preliminary prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission to raise $5 billion in an initial public offering, sources said. The company decided to start smaller, then expand if there is demand for additional shares. A $10 billion IPO had been expected.

Wall Street is about to make USD 100 million thanks to a once obscure law passed nearly 50 years ago.

The law is a 1964 amendment to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 that requires companies with over USD 10 million in assets and 500 shareholders to register under the Exchange Act.

Since registration carries all the costly disclosure of going public, many companies that hit the threshold decide that they might as well go public.

Facebook is in no hurry to go public. It has unlimited access to private capital, as last year`s Goldman Sachs sponsored deal demonstrated. Even after Goldman excluded US investors from its offering, its Goldman funds were oversubscribed.

But because Facebook has far more than USD 10 million in assets and exceeded the 500 shareholder limit last year, the company is required to register with the SEC by April 29, 2012. It is likely to go public when it registers or sometime shortly afterwards.

Although the 500 hundred shareholder rule is often thought to be a shareholder protection provision, it has really never been anything more than a hidden subsidy for Wall Street. The principal beneficiaries of the rule are Wall Street investment banks and the stock exchanges.

The rule was passed following the publication of the 1963 "Special Study of the Securities Markets," an investigation into the markets called for by President John F. Kennedy following an insider trading scandal involving an AMEX market maker.

The lobbying of SEC Commissioner Bill Cary is often described as one of the main drivers of the passage of the 1964 Amendment. Cary, a former Columbia law professor, has been described by one of his former assistants as "an intellectual snob" who "was not someone with sparkling genius intelligence, but with a discipline and a drive, and a clarity of where he wanted to go, that took him far beyond what other people with his abilities would do."

To this day, Cary is very well thought, regarded as one of the great reformers of the SEC and the securities industry. Not only was he instrumental in the passage of 1964 Act, he also helped turn policy-maker views against Wall Street`s specialists. (A stance adopted by many snobs who followed Cary.) In many ways, the current market structure-for better and for worse-can be seen as the embodiment of Cary`s vision.

Even as the 1964 Amendment were being passed, critics noticed that it was pressuring companies to register on the New York Stock Exchange. A paper of the Amendment published last year by business school professors Robert Battali, Brian Hatch, and Tim Loughran included this citation:

In an article in Barron`s National Business and Financial Weekly, Ralph Colman Jr., publisher of the Over-the-Counter Securities Review, noted with respect to the 1964 Amendments that "while purporting to extend the long arm of federal regulation over-thecounter, its thrust is aimed at the bigger unlisted companies, many of which long ago voluntarily embraced full disclosure. Small, speculative or fraudulent O-T-C ventures, which led to the heaviest losses in recent years, will come under no greater SEC scrutiny in future than in the past... What the new law has done, however, is more disturbing than what it fails to do. In particular, the looming threat of regulation has touched off a massive flight of corporate enterprise from the over-the-counter market to an organized exchange."

The paper, titled "Who Benefited from the Mandated Disclosures of the 1964 Securities Acts Amendments?" finds that the amendment didn`t actually increase investor information all that much. Most of the information required to be disclosed following registration was already available to the investing public, either because companies were already disclosing the information or the information could be obtained from Moody`s.

"We find that the sole beneficiary of the 1964 Amendments appears to have been the NYSE," the paper concludes.

The paper didn`t look at one other possible beneficiary-Wall Street investment banks. These banks stood to benefit by taking companies public once they exceeded the law`s threshold. The law cut companies off from private sources of capital, such as venture capital firms. It also limits the number of employees who can receive stock, making need to raise funding on the public market-that is, with the aid of Wall Street-all the more urgent.

Last year, Senators Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) introduced legislation that would reform the rule by expanding the shareholder threshold to 2,000 and exempting employee shares altogether. Unfortunately, the law seems to have gone nowhere.

The SEC`s Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies is set to recommend-perhaps as early as tomorrow-that the commission "take immediate steps to ease a rule requiring startup companies to register whenever they reach 500 shareholders," according to a report in The Deal.

But this will almost certainly come too late for Facebook-and just in time for Wall Street.

Like so many other regulations that allegedly protect shareholders, the 500 hundred shareholders rule has always been about protecting the business of investment banks. It`s a scandal that this give-away scam is about to make Facebook go public.

Mark Zuckerberg: Inside Facebook

In seven years, Mark Zuckerberg has gone from Harvard dorm to running a business with a possible value of USD 100 billion. On CNBC, an interview with the Facebook CEO tonight at 10p ET/PT and Wednesday at 8p ET.

Facebook IPO Today. Anyone want to loan me $100,000,000? I will pay you back Tomorrow. I'll invest it all in Facebook, then when the stock goes up even a fraction of a %, I will sell it all, pay you back, and enjoy my nice little profit :)

Interesting. Today as Facebook is preparing to file for an IPO with the SEC, it has been stated the worth of each member is $125.00. I wonder if we will get a check from them? Probably not. www.smh.com.auFacebook users 'worth' $125 each

Oh for fuck's sake. Now Facebook is gonna IPO and all these retarded social network people are going to be filthy rich and rest of us are going to have to move to Oakland and they'll rename San Francisco - FaceVille.

OK. Today is when Facebook makes its IPO(initial public offering) to wall street and all types of investors. Today they file the Paperwork in with the Securities and Exchange Commission and will most likely argue the case as to how and why they can make money, and how much facebook is worth..... Initial public offerings are good for those who already own big parts of facebook, and ill tell you Marc Zuckerburg, co founders, current employess, and investment firms that have guap in facebook are gonna have a Multi billion dollar payout if all goes smooth. but when you do an IPO your gonna have to answer to Chairman's and CEO's on why your company hasnt made projected values, sales, or why alot of ppl lost money....now here is a warning to all facebook Users and a question that must be asked:

If Facebook becomes publicly traded, how do you think facebook is going to prove to its investors that it can make returns? hmmmmmmmmmm...the answer is obvious.

Lot's of talk of a Facebook IPO today. Once Facebook turns into one of the biggest most profitable corporations on the planet, how many anti-Walmart, anti-corporation people will pull up anchor and split? I myself fear this place will turn into either a pay-to-play site or a giant digital billboard. I guess it's time to try twitter or google plus.

The filing - half the $10 billion most analysts earlier estimated - is a starting point Facebook has said could ultimately value the company at $75 billion to $100 billion. That valuation would be one of the largest initial public offerings in U.S. history. The actual offering is expected to take place in late May. Facebook to file for $5 billion IPO | UPI

Facebook is going public on the stock exchange. My gut is telling me that it's a BUY. Don't be nuckle-head. BUY this stock on the open. It's going to blow up. Now, I haven't seen the multiple but momentum will carry it; at least for the first few trading sessions.

Facebook will trade like Google. Lot's of smart people said I was crazy but I purchased GOOG the day of the IPO for $100 per share, and sold my last shares at $700 each a few years later.

If you don't trade stocks this might be the time to start. Good thing for you is that if you are my Facebook friend, I'll even tell you when to SELL!!